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Welcome to Real Talk Real Estate, the show where we cover how to build wealth in real estate with no fluff, no BS and no sales pitches. I'm David Green, and I've been doing this for over 10 years. I've seen the ups, the downs, and everything in between. This is the show where we pull back the curtain and show it to you, too. So if you want to build wealth through real estate or you just love learning about it, you found your home. What's going on? Welcome to Real Talk Real Estate. I'm David Green. This is the David Green Show. I'm joined today by guest Daryl Ison, who's got a little bit of ups, a little bit of downs, a little bit of realness about what's going on in the real estate industry. And he has been gracious enough to come on the show and pull back the curtain and show us what's good and what's bad and everything in between. So, Daryl, I'm excited to hear about your story. Thank you for joining me today.
B
Yeah, great. Great to join you, David. Thanks for having me on.
A
Yeah. All right, let's start with your Airbnb disaster, and then we'll get into your, your overall story of investing. But for those that don't own short term rentals, you probably hear about them based on people's YouTube videos. For those that do own short term rentals, I think a lot of them think they're the only one that are doing it wrong and that there's something wrong with them because you don't see the reality. Why don't you just tell us a little bit about this house, how you bought it, how it went, what your experience was. So everybody can understand that they are not alone in the struggle.
B
Sure, sure. So, so I bought this place back in 2018. It's a triplex in Canton, Ohio, really close to two major hospitals. And I had a heck of a time keeping good tenants in my property manager. I'm a great property manager there. So I don't say anything bad about them, but they would, they would find tenants. They'd pay for six months to a year. Then they quit paying. Some of them would trash it. All kinds of people were throwing, there's a common basement there. People were throwing, throwing mattresses down there and having their friends sleep there. And it was, it kind of turned into a disaster. Right. And I thought, well, what do I do with this thing? I'm either going to sell it or I need to do something else. And right at that time, the midterm rental Strategy was kind of taken hold, and I went to bpcon and there happened to be one. It was in San Diego, which is where I'm at. And there happened to be some sessions on midterm rentals, so. So I went ahead and decided I'd try that. So I took. Took one of the three units converted.
A
Was this the BPCON in San Diego by chance?
B
Yeah, it was the BPCON in San Diego.
A
I remember that.
B
Yeah. So I took. I took one of those units, the second floor unit, the one in the middle, because I had a. I had a vacancy, and we completely rehabbed it, made it beautiful, put in beautiful furnishings. And my. My take is always like, I want to be the nicest place when people are looking at the pictures, because that's how I pick an Airbnb, right? I'm like, oh, that's the one I want to stay at. But then I want to price myself competitively, right? And so. So that's what I did. And I, you know, I use a combination of furnish finder, Airbnb, VRBO and so on and so forth. And I just funneled all through a channel manager or furnish finders. You kind of have to manage separately, but. But so, you know, I had it up and running, you know, for about six months. Then I did. I did the attic unit. I did the first bedroom. And this thing has been a roaring. Most of my. I'd say 50% of my. 50 to 60% of my. My stays have been through furnish finder, which has been good because you sign a. It's a direct booking, right? Just like it's off my direct booking website. But the Airbnb stays have had a little more challenges. And recently I had a couple from Singapore stay in my first floor unit. They brought in a couple unauthorized puppies, which I do allow pets, but I vet my. The pets very, very well, right? I don't allow young puppies because I. I'm a dog guy. I've had young puppies. I know what they do to a house, right? And you've got to be very diligent. So they had these two puppies. They. They were there for. This was a midterm stay. So they were there for about three and a half months. They were supposed to stay till the end of January of this year. All of a sudden, it. I think it was like January 2nd or 3rd. I get a message from them, hey, we've. Or I got a message from Airbnb saying that the reservation was canceled, which I thought was weird. I'm like, how do you cancel a reservation in the middle of the reservation, right? So I reach out to Airbnb, I'm like, hey, what's going on here? I reach out to them. They. They didn't respond to me, the guest. So I, I reach out to Airbnb and they're like, oh, yeah, people can cancel. And it's weird because it made my whole calendar blank out. Like it had never been there. So it looks like I have like higher vacancy than I do on my reports and everything else, which I'm kind of OCD on. That stuff I don't like, you know, it throws my vacancy off on my reporting. But I still got paid for that time and turned out they had some sort of family emergency. So I get my cleaner in there about two days later because we weren't expecting to have a cleaning that day. So it took a couple days to get them in there. And there were. I mean, this place is a hundred year old building. Beautiful wood trim, like original stuff, right? 100 year old baseboards, chewed up power cables, chewed up leather sofa, chewed up dog feces all over the office area. Apparently they were closing them in the, in the office. And they, they also were scratching at these hundred year old doors.
A
The trim, yeah, they eat through it.
B
They just, it was just bad. And they were letting the dogs use the restroom in the office. And when we were going through the air cover case, she admitted that, hey, well, it wasn't always convenient to take them outside. And I'm like, well, there are puppy pads and stuff if you wanted to puppy pad train them. But you know, first of all, you weren't supposed to have them. So we go through the whole air cover thing. She goes, and as soon as I, as soon as I put in, like for the damages, because the first step with Airbnb is you put in and say, hey, look, there's these damages. You tally it up and it goes to the guest. And the guest decides either to pay or not to pay. She decided not to pay. And then she posts this right after she declined it. About 10 minutes later, I get a one star review from her, right? And I'm like, oh, great, here we go. So. So, you know, and it was claiming all kinds of stuff. Now, we had a couple bumps in the road. They were there for three months. There was, there, there was a bed frame. They broke. And we fixed it the next day, right? There were two incidents where there was no hot water. And it was interesting because my guy went out there the next day after they reported it and said, yeah, the pilot light was off for some reason. And they, two of the units are on one hot water tank. They're on their own one on this particular unit and. But it's down in the basement in the common area with the laundry. And for safety, I do have video cameras in the common areas. Right. And it's well disclosed and everything that there's video cameras in the common areas. I didn't even think to go look the first time that it went out. Well, the second time it goes out, they reported at 5 o' clock in the, in the evening and say there has been no hot water for two days. Like, well, you should have let me know right away that there was no hot water. We would have got it taken care of right away. So I have someone come out. They couldn't get anyone out. So the next morning against the pilot light. So this time I go look at the cameras and see that they're fiddling with the controls right before, you know, and I'm like, look, you can't, like I don't know what you guys are trying to do. Is the hot water not hot enough? What's going on? They wouldn't admit that they were fiddling with it. I'm like, okay, fine. But so I had to report all this stuff, in short, back to Airbnb, that these were, you know, how what happened on these two issues, these three issues and you know, what we did to resolve them. And so we go through the whole air cover thing, which is not easy. Like you have to give pictures, video. I had to show. She said that the place was trashed when she got there and unlivable. So we had to show a video of my cleaning beforehand. Now keep in mind, David, I've got like my average on my seven. You know, midterm stays on Airbnb is like midterm rentals on Airbnb rather is like was like 4.89 or something, right? So I never had anything below a 4. And even then it was, I mean it was like one time and it was a cleaning issue. And that cleaner is no longer working for me, right? So, so, so, you know, but my cleaners do a video after every cleaning of the whole place. So I sent the video in. I win the air cover case in the end, right? I win the air cover case. I'm getting reimbursed for my damages and I'm thinking, okay, it should be a no brainer now they'll take down this review. So I, I asked them to take down the Review at Airbnb. Clearly retaliatory, which is their policy. Their policy is no retaliatory reviews. And what they told me is that, oh, that policy is. No, it's retaliatory. Not towards you, but towards Airbnb. I'm. I'm like, what? Like, that makes no sense to me.
A
There's no way to give Airbnb a review that would be like, what, a Yelp? You go to Yelp and say, I had a bad experience on their app.
B
Anyway, so the. The guy that was helping me was great. But you don't get to talk to the person that actually evaluates whether your review gets taken down or not. Right. You're dealing with somebody in customer service that, you know, they do a really great job at being nice and everything.
A
And, yeah, they're just trying to. Okie dokie. If I'm nice enough to it, maybe he'll just walk away and let it go.
B
Yep. Okie dokie. But he did tell me when it got denied the first time. He goes, you can submit one more time. We only let you submit twice to get a review taken down. So you can submit one more time, but make sure the justification is great. Well, I looked back through my justification the first time. Plus, keep in mind, they only let you have so many characters in the justification.
A
Yeah.
B
So you can only provide so much information. So I took and rewrote the justification, used AI to kind of trim it down to fit into, you know, into that character limit. Resubmit. Denied. Like, right away. Like, within hours. They denied it. And I'm like, all right, this, like, what do I do here? Because this has taken me now from a 4.89 down to like a 4.7 or something. Right. Overall. And it's like the first review that shows up when someone at any of my Airbnb sees my reviews. So I was getting questions from potential guests, hey, what's up with this review? And, you know, I responded and said, obviously what had happened on the review. Again, you only get so much space to do that, to put in the detail. So it was affecting my bookings. I don't know how many people didn't even. Just didn't even try to book with me because they saw this review. Right? So about a month later, I get a message from Airbnb, hey, such and such guest would like a refund on the night from when she canceled to when. The end of which was about a month, Right. It was like 26 days or something. And I said, well, I was able to get another guest in there on the 11th of January, which was a. Which was a fairly long stay. So I, I would be willing to refund from the 11th on if she takes. If she tells you guys to take down that one star review, sure. Of course. So I had a little leverage. Of course, I didn't want to give back eight or nine hundred dollars, but I did. And she then told them to take down the review. The review came down. Then she asked them to have me remove my review of her. And I was like, sorry.
A
Yeah. Because then guys like me are gonna book her not knowing.
B
Yeah.
A
Disaster of a human.
B
And it's not like she had other Airbnb stays. And they were all five stars, but they were never with a pet. Right. And that's. I think that's the key. Like, this was a young couple from Singapore. They never had dogs before. They brought a couple puppies in. They broke the rules by doing so. Right. And they weren't there during the day. Plus, I provide a kennel, by the way, for any. There's a kennel there. And one of my rules if you do bring a dog is if you're not going to be there, like, you know, your dog, if your dog's destructive in any way, kennel your dog when you're not home. Right. And I try to make it very easy for people and, and you know, the kennel hadn't been used. It was, it was, it was, it was just a really bad situation. In the end, you know, I lost revenue. I potentially lost some bookings, which wasn't such a big deal because I, I do book longer term stays, so I had time to recover from it. And most of my stuff was booked up, you know, well in advance prior to this review, being out there for about two months. But it was, it, it was a pain. And it didn't feel like the whole time it felt like airbnb was on her side and not mine. And that was, that was the biggest problem. And, you know, I, I heard the podcast you did with the Stay Fi guys, right. And I'm like, oh, this is interesting. So I have one here at my house testing out. I. It's kind of hard to get in. My places are in Ohio and in Kansas City, so it's kind of hard for me from San Diego to go get stuff deployed. But this summer, I'm planning to go replace all my Google home stuff with. With the Stay Fi stuff because it seems to be working really well because I'm just going to try to get more direct bookings more and more than. Go less. Less Airbnb as much as possible. Right.
A
So that seems to be the consensus right now is I, I just haven't met a human being yet that isn't absolutely at their wit's end with Airbnb. They went from the coolest thing that changed an industry, that changed all of real estate, that let you buy houses in areas you typically never could have got into because the revenue from the rent wouldn't support the price of the house. It gave people the opportunity to kind of get their licks in at hospitality and, and design. It just, it was amazing what this did to real estate. It opened up all these doors and it imploded so fast to just, just universally the most hated company within real estate investors I've ever seen. Like, what's your, what's been your experience overall with just.
B
Well, yeah, I mean, unfortunately, they're still big with the guest side. Right. And even, like, I, I no longer book through them as. Again, I used to use Airbnb a lot, like, as a guest right now I'm like, nah, I'll go try. You know, the State Finder thing's really cool. I'll go to Airbnb and I'll look for direct bookings now.
A
Yeah, explain that process. For people listening that don't know this is a much.
B
Yeah, so that's something new. I think they just released that and it's, it's. It's a little. It's a little. I'm. I'm originally a tech guy, but it's a little plugin that goes in your browser from, From State. State Fi. State Finder. I think it's called State. It's statefi, but it's State Finder.
A
That's this package they have.
B
Yeah, this little package, right. That's the product or whatever. And when you load it into your browser and then you go to Airbnb, it'll. If someone, if it's enabled, if they're using the Stay system, like WI Fi system, it will go in or you don't even have to have the WI Fi, you just have to have your stuff imported into Stay Stay Fi, which actually doesn't cost anything. It's just when you start doing the marketing and some of the other stuff and it'll show up in Airbnb with a little button saying click to, you know, click to Book Direct or something to that effect. It's, it's. But it's pretty obvious. It's a big old button that's like right next to the listing. And, you know, it's. I, I've always been someone that if someone tried to get me to go off platform for a booking, I would just say, no, I'm not gonna, I'm not going to book you. Right. Because if you're trying to break the rules with, with Airbnb and the policies and take me off platform, then I kind of don't trust that you're going to follow my rules. Yeah. But now I'm kind of like, now I've been the one in some cases, like, doing that. Okay. You know, I had some, I had this, this group that, you know, it was a group of guys that were in town doing work, and I, it was my place in Kansas City, which is a three bedroom, and there was three of them. And they said, hey, you know, like, your, your rate's just a little high here on Airbnb. We only get $2,400 a month. And I'm like, well, $2,400 a month's fine by me.
A
You know, it might have been more than you would have got from the Airbnb.
B
Yeah, I mean, I, I think, yeah, typically booking, I get 25 with direct bookings. Right. But with Airbnb, I get, I get like 23.
A
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
B
So 2400 more splitting the difference here.
A
That's exactly right. And all you had to do was cut out Airbnb.
B
Yeah. Even though Chris Voss says to never do that. But I'm splitting the difference and we're, we're good.
A
I, I don't think I quite follow the Stay Finder thing. So I know the state is an at home system that allows guests to log into the WI fi at the property and you collect their email when they do it. Now you can kind of market to these people directly. But it sounded like you were saying that there's an option on Airbnb to book direct. I don't think that's what you meant. No, no.
B
Well, kind of, sort of. Here's how it works. So they've launched this product at StayFi called Stay Finder. Right. And essentially what it is is a way to direct book when you're searching Airbnb. So it puts a little plugin on in your browser. Okay. Be it Chrome, Edge, whatever. Puts a little plugin in your browser. So when you go to airbnb, this little plugin is looking at whatever's on your screen. It's doing like a screen capture and saying, oh, this listing is also in StayFi. And here's the link to the direct booking site so you can go book it directly.
A
Airbnb's got to be pissed about that.
B
I'm sure they're going to try to figure out a way to stop it.
A
This is brilliant. Yeah. So they don't actually. It doesn't show up on Airbnb's website.
B
Nope.
A
But your browser that's looking at their website goes. Goes, hey, I see you're looking at this listing. I've used all my tools. Whether it's I recognize the pictures from the direct site on Google or that someone has stayed at this property address with StayFi before, I can connect you to the host and you can save on all those fees. So you're basically getting all the benefits of Airbnb because that's where the inventory is, right?
B
Yeah. So what it's doing is it's taking, it's taking my import to stay fi. Right from my channel manager of all my properties, and it's somehow matching up in the back end cross referencing what's on the screen to my stuff when someone sees my listings.
A
Anyway, I bet you there's like Google Image Match could do this easy, right? It looks at the picture they have on Airbnb and it's like, oh, that's the same picture that I have on this website of a direct booking website. It's probably here, click this. And then you're like, oh, yeah, that's the same house, but I can get it. I mean, we're not talking peanuts, folks. You're probably talking saving 20% or more if you book direct.
B
Yeah, you're, you're, you're making a little more money, right? You're, you're saving your guest money. You know, honestly, the, the air covered stuff doesn't do a lot to protect you anyway. I used to do like these worry free waivers when I'd have direct bookings through like Furnish Finder and things like that. And I kind of quit doing them because I realized I'm spending like 50 to 75 dollars a month for insurance. And while it worked well, when I used it a couple times, it was like, I'm spending hundreds of dollars a month across my, my portfolio for insurance. Why don't I just take that 250 bucks or whatever every month, put it in the bank and be my own insurance company? And now I've got a few thousand. You know, I've got like $10,000 in that bank account because I haven't had to draw out of it for repairs very often.
A
So Well, I may be wrong about this point. Point, but my understanding of air cover originally was airbnb covers you if the guest breaks it. So, like, they take a percentage of their money they get and they put aside as an insurance policy. Lately, from what Angela's been telling me, when we make an air cover claim, they're going and trying to get it from the guest.
B
Yes. And they do.
A
Okay.
B
Yes. So. So when you. When you go. When I went in and I submitted the, the damage, right. Like said, you know, you go into Airbnb and you report there were damages that you want to recover, it first sends a message to the guests asking them if they acknowledge these damages and we'll. We'll pay for them. Right. And the guests can either say, yes, they'll do it, or no, they'll refuse. I had a guest, you know, a couple years ago that, you know, their kids had caused some damage, and she had let me know about it. And I, you know, and I'm like, okay, well, you know, a couple of things I wasn't too worried about. Then there was some stuff I didn't know about. When they went back in, there were some tears and some furniture I had to have repaired, some other things. And I said, hey, look, you know, this is a little beyond what you had told me. And I was. I was okay with some broken glasses and dishes. Right. That stuff happens. I keep some inventory for that. But, you know, when talking about tears and furniture and stuff and. And stains on rugs that won't come out, so I just, I sent it, it went to her, and she paid it. She was happy to pay it. And she said, I hope you can still give me a five star review. I'm so sorry this happened, you know, And I'm like, no problem. Right? And because to me, that's still a five star review. She took care of the problem.
A
Hell, yeah. That's exactly. And you put in there, she damaged the property, she owned it. She paid me in full. This is an amazing guest. That's who you want booking. That's what you. That's better than a person that didn't damage it in a way, because maybe they didn't damage it on accident. But now, you know, if you book this person, I'm getting someone with integrity that will make it right if they screw up.
B
Exactly.
A
Yeah. That's a solid point. So now Airbnb is trying to get the guests to pay instead of you. And the guest can say no, or they can send you like they've done to us. Nasty Messages afterward. We've had that. Where we put in a claim. I think the last one was, we have this really nice pool table in a game room. And then they had completely stained. The felt was really bad. Like they spilled a drink and like almost half of it was stained. And the house was also trashed. They had thrown like a birthday party for little kids. And normally I'm okay. Like, I don't want a party of adults that are getting drunk and they don't know the person and they're smashing things. But if you want a bunch of little kids running around in the house, we'd be fine with it. But that comes with watching the kids. You don't get to say they broke your arcade games, they broke your ceiling fan, they spilled everything that, hey, that their kids. Right? They're your responsibility. You got to watch those kids.
B
Exactly.
A
So he. We put in the air cover claim. He comes back with all guns blazing. You guys are terrible people. You lied to Airbnb. I can't believe I left a five star review and you did this. And he just, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then we sent him back to pictures. Well, here's why. This is what the pool table looks like. This is all your trash that was left. Here's the siding of the wall that was damaged. I think there was even a. Like one of the ceiling fans in one of the bedrooms. The kids had jumped and tried to hang from it and they had broken off the fan blades. And then his whole tone changed. He just didn't know he wasn't watching. And instead of asking us why this happened, he just immediately got defensive. And that seems like that's par for the course with America today.
B
Yeah. No, and I mean, obviously she got very defensive too, on this, right? And that's when she came back a blazing. Like there was this problem and this problem. This problem. It's like, yeah, we took care. They weren't major problems. We took. I get it. It's not good. I don't like to take a cold shower either. But you also were messing around with the hot water heater, so.
A
Yeah.
B
And the camera hasn't gone out since. You know what I mean?
A
Yeah, that's a. That's exactly right. I. This is a weird thing for me, Daryl. I've lived in houses my whole life. I've never been homeless, okay? I've owned a lot of houses my whole life. I've owned houses that I've lived in. I've never broke a ceiling fan in any of my houses. The Whole time I've had them, I've like, the things that go wrong in these Airbnbs. I scratch my bald head. I don't know how they're breaking it other than their kids are just acting like feral animals or they're bringing people over, they don't know who think it's fun to just be rough and punch arcade games or whatever the case would be. But the guests are certainly not, in every circumstance, treating that property with respect. I mean, literally, like, pool cue snapped in half and put back in the thing. Like, they snapped it over their knee like Bo Jackson.
B
Right.
A
Never have I had a pool cue snap in half my entire life of shooting pool. So while I do agree that we need to prevent slum lords from fraudulently representing their properties and putting bad pictures that don't match the condition of it, I don't think that's a practical problem right now. I. I think there is so much competition on Airbnb between hosts that you have. Honestly, just my subjective opinion here. I think investors are wasting money dumping it into these houses. I'm watching people put $150,000 into this house and turning it into a circus to try to compete, and they're never going to get that money back. And if they want to sell the house, no one wants to buy a circus. I almost think it's foolish how much hosts are throwing into their deals.
B
A lot of the customization and stuff. Right? Yeah. I don't understand. I mean, obviously, I'm in a little different market. I'm not in, like, a vacation market. I'm. I'm hosting people that are there to work for a month, three months. Heck, I've had a guest there for two years now, you know, and she's placed there through a. Through a. A. She's a doctor placed through a. A, you know, staffing company right off a furnish finder. And. And, you know, these people, they want a place to live that's comfortable. They can come home, feel good, feel good about where they're staying and make it, you know, have it be at least as nice as what they live in in their own home or a little bit nicer. Right? And that. That's kind of what I shoot for. So I put nice artwork on the walls. I put. Actually, this. This lady that's been with me for two years, I found out she's an artist on the side. So now I've been buying paintings from her for. For furnishing some of my other stuff because it's just, you know, it looks really. So I put it, I put a little bit more money into the furnishings than I maybe need to. But we're not talking hundreds or thousand. We're talking like maybe three, $4,000 more than, than what I need to just to make myself stand out a little bit better. Right.
A
Yeah. That's a normal experience.
B
Right. And for more quality so I don't have to replace it in a year or two.
A
Huh.
B
So.
A
Yeah, but then the guest breaks it and wants to get off Scotch free. And Airbnb is siding with the guests, not the host, because they don't need more hosts. They got more houses than are being filled. Yeah, they need more guests because they don't want to go into booking and VRBO and all the other options of platforms that are out there.
B
Well, it's similar. I, so I, I did have a direct booking guest recently that, you know, they didn't, they didn't break much. There's a couple, there's a, there was a hole down on the wall in one spot. It was like down at foot level going down the stairs. I'm guessing someone slipped or something and, and whatever. But there, but there was, they had, they had a dog. They had two dogs and they were authorized, but they just, it was dog hair everywhere. They hadn't cleaned. There were, you know, there was, it was, it was in bad shape and it was a, it was a one day term. Right. So my cleaner could not get it done. There was just, it was impossible. So I had to, I had to, you know, have the new guests coming. I had to pay for a hotel for them for a night. Right. Yeah. To get it all cleaned up and it still wasn't, she was just overwhelmed. And, and when I sent this guy the pictures and the videos and the damn. I told him about the damage. I listed everything out and I sent him the pictures and all the damage. He got super defensive on me and I'm like. And I, I go, here's, here's the video of the cleaning the day before you got there, you know, and he calmed down after that. I'm like, look, I'm not asking you to pay a lot of money here to fix things. Right. Here's what I'm asking for, you know, and it was like $600 or something to pay for the extra cleaning. And there was like, they had allowed her, even though I say not to. If you're going to allow your pets on the furniture, you're going to need to put. Because I put leather, leather or leather, like furniture in there. So if someone spills something, it's easy to clean up. Right. But dog claws and stuff can.
A
Oh, they'll puncture right through it.
B
Yeah, they'll puncture right through it. So I, I, I, I keep these heavy blankets there. You know, put the blankets on top and then that's fine.
A
Well, which you would do at your own house if you had an expensive house that you just bought, paid $5,000.
B
I don't allow my dogs on the furniture.
A
Yeah, I, I don't. When I was growing up, we didn't bring our dogs in the house. They were outside. And if you brought them in, they had one place. Now it's, it's odd how we have turned the animals into humans in a lot of ways. That's a whole.
B
I live in a three story. They got a bed at every level, but it's there.
A
But they got a bed. Yeah. They're not in your bed. They're not all over the rest of the house getting their hair everywhere. It's not the dog's fault. It's just like, I don't blame the kids when they go in there and they go nuts. That's a parent that lets kids act that way. How are they supposed to know the difference between being in this house versus a house that they're in when they're seven years old?
B
Yeah.
A
All right, so I want to shift things a little bit. Let me ask you about your journey in real estate. You had mentioned a little bit about some ups and down and obviously the market's up and down. So if you're an investor, you're probably tracking with the market. What's your story like as far as how you got.
B
I'm older than I look. Right. So my, my goal, my goal when I started this journey was to be able to retire at 50 and not have to work a day job and just sit at the beach and live off of my passive investment income. I'm 52 now and I'm not there. Right. So, so I'm getting closer, but I'm not. And I don't think I'll ever, I'll never quit working at this point. Right. Like, I always be managing my properties and doing that kind of stuff. But I started out in about 2000. 2002 is when I bought my first property. It was a condo in Normal Heights, which is just outside of downtown San Diego. It was a little two bedroom, two bath. Picked it up for like $170,000, which now it's worth like 700 or something. Ridiculous. And I lived there for a couple of years. And then I got married, bought a house in, in a suburb of San Diego and rented that place out. So that was my kind of accidental falling into being a landlord that was pretty successful. I was making a little bit better than what I owed on the mortgage on it every month. Had had a good tenant in there and I had a, I was, I was in an IT tech job. I was the vice president of IT for this bank that was. Well, they were a lender. They did subprime mortgages back in, back in like back before 20, 27, 28. And they were bought by another big bank in New York. And so as a result we had this big esop that got paid out. So all of a sudden I'm like 27 years old and I've got $250,000 in stock sitting there. And I wanted to be a real estate investor, but I didn't. There wasn't bigger pockets for me at the time. There wasn't. There was. Kiyosaki was out there. But I had never read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I just heard this was a good idea. I read like some landlord book and went and jumped into it and then thought, hey, why don't I take a hundred thousand of this money and put down on a fourplex in Las Vegas? Because Vegas was booming then. In 2005 they were like 3000 people were moving to Vegas every month. It was booming. I bought this place for $480,000 and by 2007 it was worth about $125,000. That's what they were foreclosing at. And I couldn't keep tenants in it because people were just fleeing Vegas. So not only, you know, there was. The seller lied to me about the rents and I didn't do my due diligence. Everything you could do wrong, I did wrong on that property. Right?
A
Yeah.
B
So it was a hundred thousand. It was more than a hundred thousand dollar lesson because I had put more money into it. Right. So it was probably about $150,000 lesson plus having a foreclosure on my record for a little while. The only good thing for me at the time was like half the population had foreclosures on their records or short sales at the time. So. Right. It didn't hurt so bad. Right. So I was actually able to buy a house again a few years later. But, but so I, I didn't invest until I actually ended up selling that condo in 2014. That place went into foreclosure in like 2008. I didn't do anything with real estate investing until 2017 again. So I bought my own personal house in rancho Bernardo in 2015. And then in 2017 I bought a duplex in North Canton, Ohio. Really nice three bedroom built in the 1990s. Each side, three bedrooms on both sides. New, nice big two car garages. And I canceled a, a spring break trip with my kids to Maui. Actually not, not to Maui. We were going to go to the Big island on that trip. A trip to the Big island to go instead go on spring break to rehab a unit. So my kids at the time were like, you know, 9 and 11. And I've got them out there like putting down, you know, hardwood flooring and stuff like that. It was a great lesson. And we were working 16 hour days. It was, I probably broke a million child labor laws. But we had a good time. My dad had come over and helped out where he could at the time and, and we got that place up and running and it's, it's been a cash cow ever since. The interesting thing is everything I own in my portfolio today I bought in 2017 and 2018. Right. And I've slowly been, instead of buying more in the last few years, although I've been looking, the numbers just don't pencil out so much. So it seems to be a better investment for me to take a long term rental when someone leaves, convert it to a midterm rental in the areas that I'm at and I almost double my rent. And so if I'm gonna go, you know, I do some of these two bedroom apartments, it's like $15,000 to double the rent. So it just, it's a much better use of my, of my capital to, to do that now. I do want to start growing the portfolio again here at some point. I did try. In 2020 I bought a new build in Florida that I went through the whole build process in Cape Cod Coral and that didn't turn out so well. So that, that one that was through like one of these like I want to call like turnkey providers, right. And it was a, I had to go get a construction loan, I had to do the whole thing and you know, I put a bunch of money down and they built this beautiful four bedroom, two bathroom, you know, house. It was outside of the flood zones. I didn't have insurance issues or anything like that. Rents on it were like $2,600 when it finally finished the construction. The construction took almost three times as long as it's supposed to, supposed to be six months. Took 18 months to get this thing up and running. But the problem was is during that 18 months, interest rates went from like 3%, 3 to 4% for an investor loan, up to like 7%.
A
Yeah, man, it was like in, it was like whiplash speed with how fast rates went up.
B
So my, my cash flow that I thought I was going to get went from like 5, 600amonth to like a hundred dollars a month. Right.
A
And that's assuming like you have occupancy and you're getting the money that you budgeted for rent.
B
Exactly, exactly. It was a new build, so I didn't have a lot of maintenance issues or anything. Right. But hey, you know, I'm paying. That was after I paid my property manager and everything. I was clearing about 100 bucks a month. Then the tenant that I had in there for a couple years decided she was going to go rent something else because rents had dropped significantly. Right. They went all the way down to about eighteen hundred dollars a month for that same house. When you went on Zillow, it was, you went on Zillow and you put the little, the little filter to rentals, right? And it was just full of purple everywhere, right. And then I go turn it on to for sale for a four bedroom, right? Just, we're just talking four bedrooms here. I put it on for sale and There were like 200 listings for four bedrooms for sale. So I talked to my property manager out there. I said, hey Kevin, I think, I think I need to dump this thing. And he goes, well, what are you thinking? I was looking at Zillow and I said, hey, looks like the cheapest one is like 280,000 that's built. There's a lot that are in the middle of construction, people are trying to sell. I said, let's list it for 275. And we closed about three weeks. Well, we, we got an offer about three weeks later and closed about three, four weeks after that. But I had to bring $5,000 to the table in the end to close down. Now when, when it was finished, when the construction was done, it was worth like $400,000. And I ended up, you know, so I ended up losing money on that quite a bit actually. The worst part was is my ex wife was a co investor on with me. So not, this is the mother of my children, right? So she had said, hey, I want to get in on this Cape Coral property. I've got some money, I want to invest. I'm like, sure. And so we both lost money. On it and she doesn't hate me any more or less for it.
A
So that's good I guess. When. Yeah, yeah, it's your ex wife. It. You're sort of playing with house money there when it comes to that. Curious, what did prices do after you sold at the 275?
B
Oh, they've continued to drop.
A
That's the point I wanted to get to. There were so many people two years ago that were like, oh, we're not making it work. Whether it was a rental like yours, traditional rents are down for what we thought or as a short term rental, we can't keep up. And they would say, I've talked to so and so and such and such and they all say we got to put 75000 into it, minimum. We really need to put 150000 into it to keep up. We don't think we should do that. What do you want to do? What should we do? And I said, you should sell it. Well, if we sell we're going to lose money. And there was this, this emotional barrier that nobody wanted to lose money. And of course no one likes losing money. But it was unreasonable from my perspective. And I think it was 10 years of watching everyone make money and if you made 40 grand on a flip, but that guy made 70 grand you thought you lost. That was kind of the mindset that everyone had.
B
No, you're right, you're right.
A
And if they didn't get out, it just plummeted and we are probably going into a market. My gut tells me. And so this is just my gut. I know a lot of people like to listen to the data and they like to read the reports. I'm not referring to any of those. Just what I'm seeing and how I see the economy moving that in certain markets, not everywhere, but certain markets, certainly Cape Coral, I think that was maybe the worst market in the country at a certain point.
B
It was, it was 100% the worst. The worst.
A
Yeah.
B
They overbuilt.
A
I think we are going to see foreclosures. I think you're going to see buyers are. It doesn't matter what you price your house at, no one's gonna buy it. I mean unless it's like if you could price it low enough to make someone buy it, you wouldn't be able to pay off your loan. That's the problem we have. So those people that took the L ended up taking a W. And that is just something to keep in mind as you're going through this journey. Of ups and downs. We haven't had downs for a long time. We had quantitative easing. Every time we thought we were going to get it down, shoot the economy up with stimulus. All of a sudden I'm awake again. You just gave me a big hit of meth. I don't need to go to bed after all. I'm going to stay up all night long. Work. And the market just kept on going and you're running out of that. We are going to go into a nap. And the jobs report that recently came out was abysmal. I think they were expecting 60, 70,000 jobs and they lost 92,000. It was a huge swing. And. And there's probably going to be another one of those. And no one buys houses when they don't have jobs. This is what never gets talked about on bigger pockets. It doesn't get talked about in the industry. We always focus on the nitty gritty of the house. Right. What's the siding you should use and what's the best way to do your renovation. But the reality is housing tracks with the economy. If you feel wealthy, if you've got a good job, you're making money, you're watching your savings go up, your 401k feels healthy, everyone's getting raises. You, you want to buy a house, you want to buy a bigger house. And the opposite is also true. If you think an AI is going to take your job, you can't find a job. You haven't gotten a raise in six years, but everything else that you buy has become more expensive. You feel poor, you don't want to take on the additional responsibility of starting a family, of having kids, and of buying a house. It's exactly what we see. That's why I'm saying it's kind of a gut feeling. But if you, if you're in a position that you can get out and it's your pride holding you back, I can't tell you what's going to happen. But I would err on the side of caution and get out. If. If you didn't have to get out, that's a small annoyance. But if you can't get out at all and you have to foreclose and then there is a great buying opportunity and you can't partake in it.
B
Oof.
A
That just stings so much worse.
B
No, it completely does. And, and you know, you gotta. I think the people that hunt that have hung on there, they don't look at their investing as a business. Right. I look at it as a business. There was no emotional attachment to it. It was, you know, I looked at the numbers, I went over them with the ex wife because she wasn't, I said, hey, this, this is what I think we should do. And she was like, okay, do it. She agreed and we did it. And, and there was, there was really no emotion involved in. It was like, look, the bottom line is I can, I'm going to continue, we're going to continue to lose money here and I'm going to have to, you know, there's always this argument over is cash flow or equity better. Right? Well, I think we all, we all want both, right? Cash flow saves your equity though. Cash flow. You know what I mean? Like if you, if, if you're going, if you're negative every month, you can't hang on for too long. And I'm lucky. I have a pretty high paying tech, tech sales job. I work as a realtor on the side. I do pretty good and I could eat the 500, 600.
A
Yes.
B
But if I ate that every single month, what could have I been doing with that money? Right? And that was, that was where, you know, it's, it's lost opportunity cost.
A
Well, there's two ways of looking at real estate investing. The way you're doing it is the way that I have encouraged people to go for ever for. I've never deviated from this. I think real estate is an amazing wealth building tool. It is not an amazing wealth creating tool. It can create wealth if you catch the right headwinds or maybe their tailwinds. Whatever it is that's behind you, pushing you forward and you're in the right environment, it can do it. But it isn't meant for that and it's rare that that happens. It is a great piece of a triangle where you make a lot of money on offense, you live fiscally responsible on defense and then you throw investing in there. It becomes an offset to the money that you made making money. And when you have a bad market like this, if you're still offensively doing well, like you just said, you can ride out this downside. Now the other school of thought that's much more popular than the one they, than the way I say these people get more downloads on their videos and they get more followers on their podcast is it is a replacement for work. Okay, Offense is hard. Like you just said, you have a high paying tech sales job and you have to be a realtor. You're busy, you're working all day almost every day. You're squeezing in little ways to get some time for yourself within this framework of these two jobs. This is what makes America run. This is what made America great. It is a bunch of people like you being very productive that pay a lot of taxes, that support all the people that are not doing it. That goes away when we go, you know what, I want to go full time into living off my cash flow or I want to flip houses and I'll flip a house a month and it'll be passive income. My contractor will run the cruise. It works in that same environment that real estate can create wealth. As soon as you'll slip out of everything being perfect, you find it doesn't work. Like you said, you, you can't sell and you're losing money. Every month goes a foreclosure. When everybody has left the job market and they've all gotten into real estate like a lot of them have, there's no one to buy that house and it's going into foreclosure. And I am very afraid. The last time we had this 2010, you had a lot of mom and pops jump in. I was one of them. And that's how I got my start in real estate. I jumped in in 2010 when you got hammered and I bought houses and I saw it rise upwards. I am afraid the hedge funds are going to be the one that get these properties because you've got less lenders now than you had before underwriting these loans, which means you're gonna, instead of having it go REO on these banks, pro portfolios and then real estate agents selling it in the mls, you're gonna have hedge funds that come in and be like, oh, we could take advantage of all the taxes.
B
I wonder, like, what? You know, I haven't read that executive order that was signed, like preventing single family homes from being purchased by like large Wall street hedge funds. I don't know like what the rules are on that, but I'm hoping that can maybe prevent some of that from happening like it did back, back during
A
the pandemic, like limiting corporations buying properties.
B
Yeah, Trump signed something not to get political. I mean, Trump executive order limiting the acquisition of single family specifically. I know that it wasn't multifamily, you know, from these big hedge funds from artificially increasing prices basically by buying up the whole neighborhood. Right.
A
Can I put my tinfoil hat on for a minute here with you?
B
Yeah. Daryl.
A
No one else is listening. Just me and you. I, I live under the assumption that Trump is smarter than I am. So if I have thought of it, it's safe to say he's probably already thought of it. He's been around a lot longer than me. He's done a lot more deals than me. You can hate the guy all you want. It's tough to say he doesn't understand business and the economy.
B
Right.
A
In fact, he seems to understand it so well. He's like a savant that talks like he's in fifth grade, but he grasps what's going on at such a high level. I think Trump knows there's foreclosures coming. I think he signed that in expectation that you're going to have hedge funds that come in and try to find a way to buy these properties. And he wants them to stay in the hands of the people like you, the mom and pop Americans, not the massive corporations. But as a politician, I'm sure your hands are somewhat tied to how much you go to war with these massive companies. Because the people you need buy in from, they're often getting bunny from. Right? So if he just apps outright, says, like, I'm getting rid of the blackrocks, he's now made an enemy of all the people that BlackRock has been feeding that he has to do deals with. If he puts this executive order into place that says it's harder for corporations to do it, he doesn't name any of them directly. He maybe is kind of sending a warning shot over the bow that I don't want you guys jumping in to buy the inventory that is most likely going to come. And I will add, part of where I get this theory from is how hard he was beating on Jerome Powell to get him to lower interest rates. There was an urgency in what he was doing, just like I feel there is an urgency that we are going to go.
B
I don't know that lowering interest rates are going to save the day at this point. I mean, I think they're going to help. Right. But I, I don't. I don't know that they will. You know, and, and I, I think there's a lot of factors going on. I mean, whatever, again, like, whatever you feel about immigration, like, we are deporting millions of people. That takes down housing supply and demand, which everybody out there, it's funny because everybody wants housing affordability, but at the same time, nobody wants the value of their property to drop.
A
Oh, yeah, of course.
B
Right, yeah. So you can't have both. And, and it's, it's interesting. I mean, even, you know, I mean, my wife and I just recently bought a, bought a, bought a place up here in San Diego that, you know, and, and it's, you know, it's kind of timing the market. Like, all right, the condo market's kind of dropped 25, 30% here. Maybe now's the right time to buy and we, we, you know, downsize to a townhouse and, and we're, we're happy with it, but, you know, it's dropped a little bit more since we bought, which I knew it might, and I'm okay with that because I got to live somewhere. Right.
A
But, yeah, but if you had to pick a market to ride long term, I think San Diego's number one in the nation as far as what I'm concerned. Like, it. It may go down just like in 2010. I noticed that prices went down in really nice areas like Walnut Creek, California. I'm from Northern California. They dipped a little bit, but Stockton got decimated. It was a valuable lesson to see that, like, the undesirable areas get hammered when there's a recession and they're really nice ones, they just get a little. There's not as much impact there.
B
But San Diego, I mean, most of the housing here lost about 50% of its value during the Great Recession, but within, like five to six years, it had gained it all back.
A
Do you think that was specifically condos that lost it, or do you think it was housing?
B
It was a lot of. No, I mean, my, My house had lost it that I owned at the time. I remember. Right. So. So, yeah, no, my, my. I bought a house back then for $400,000 in 2005. Right. 450 or something. It had gone up to like 700 and it was back down to less than I had paid for it. The value in 2005, like, they jumped up in two years, and then 2007, eight hit and everything just plummeted. Right. So basically, like San Diego lost the last two years of the runs value, which was quite a bit right back in that two. That early 2000 run, and then. And then. But by 2012, 13, it had all come back. And by, you know, now it's quadrupled. For crying out loud. That same house is worth like 1.4 million now.
A
Yeah.
B
Yep.
A
What's next for you, Daryl? What are your plans for real estate going forward?
B
Well, you know, going to convert a couple more of my. Of my long terms. I've got 18 total long terms now. Seven of them are midterm. I've got two more that I want to convert in the next year. And then from there, I'm probably going to hopefully start acquiring again. You know, I'm kind of, kind of hoping some values drop a little bit or, you know, or interest rates come down or something happens to, to make sense to buy again. Because the, the other thought was, well, maybe I just, you know, I, like I said, I get pretty big commissions and stuff and maybe I just save enough money to buy another 1500-002002-00000 dollar duplex or something in, you know, in Ohio or whatever and just pay cash and not worry about the interest rate
A
and then make that refinance when it makes sense.
B
Refinance when it makes sense. Take the money out and buy it, buy another one. Right. So that's, that's probably the way the route I'm going to go. I've looked at some stuff like, like, you know, like the sober living stuff and some of those, those types of, types of deals, but I just, I don't want to have too many types
A
of, you know, different asset classes.
B
Yeah. Because it just becomes too hard to manage. So. Good point.
A
Especially when you got a good paying job and you're also selling houses as a real estate agent.
B
Yeah, well, I do still want to walk away from that good paying job. The plan is three years and I think that's realistic at this point. Right. The cool thing about what real estate has done for me though, David, is it's helped me to live a little bit higher lifestyle than I, than I would have. And I know a lot of times it's like, well, keep your lifestyle low. Well, it's helped me provide a really great lifestyle for my kids as they've grown up. We've gotten to go on great vacations, do amazing things with a lot of that rental income and you know, and, and whatever you might think of time shares. I've got a few timeshares that I paid a lot of money for. That it, to me it's, it's hedging inflation for your vacation. And, and so, you know, the nice thing is though, now that those are all paid off and everything, I can just, I can vacation when I want to when, when I, you know, I've got, I've got plenty of real estate. That extra income that I've had has helped a lot with that stuff. And then now that they're pretty much grown, I've got one more that graduates next year and they're off to college and I'm a disabled vet, I live in California, so they get to go to college for free at any state college. And so I didn't really have to save up for that. The next thing is to. To try to, you know, you know, in a few years, go full time into just doing real estate activities. My wife is. My wife's from Russia. She's a. She's an attorney from Russia. She's going to go to law school here to pass the bar this next year. And she's a little younger than me, so, you know, I'm hoping to just live off of her lawyer income too, at some point. So we'll see how that goes.
A
That be nice. Are you learning any Russian?
B
Not much, my friend. Not much. It's. It's. It's a scary language. Cyrillic, the Alphabet scares me. And I tell my wife all the time I have terrifying nightmares of seeing her Alphabet when trying to learn. I've, I've. I do. Okay. It's Spanish. I've been. We have a trip to Italy coming up for kind of a delayed honeymoon. And I've been learning some Italian for that trip, but okay, Russian, Spanish and
A
Italian are pretty similar.
B
They're very similar.
A
Russian is different Alphabet. They speak quickly. It's a smooth language, though. Like when you hear someone speaking Russian.
B
Well, there's no. There's no emotion in their language, though. That's the thing. Like, they speak very, very monotone. And she said that's the hardest thing for her with English is we're so dynamic when we speak. Right?
A
Yeah. There's is like a gentle rolling ripple. And ours is like. Or like some of them, like, Chinese is even more. It's like pow, pow, pow. Like you're getting punched in the face with those syllables. Russian's so smooth. That's what just makes it so easy to listen to.
B
Yeah.
A
What about your Russian accent? Can you speak English with a Russian accent? You mix that Spanish, I know where you live, David. They will find you and they will kill you.
B
It's. It's funny too, because she's like, every movie you watch, the bad guys are
A
always the Russians in America. They are, yeah. Is that leftover from the Cold War, you think?
B
I'm like, we won the Cold War?
A
Yeah.
B
I tell her the reason why is because they. They eat all their steak well done, though. I'm like, you gotta do that medium rare thing. You guys weren't getting enough nutrition.
A
That's funny. I sent someone a meme today, and it said, woman calls police on neighbor for using British accent. And then it had her little fake quote and it said, we won that war, and he knows it.
B
That's a good one.
A
Well, thank you for joining us today. Where can people go to to get in touch with you or follow you if they want to learn more?
B
Yeah, so my, my book direct booking site is Homes by Daryl D A R E L. It's got my email and everything on there so you can get get a hold of me that way.
A
Homes by Daryl.
B
Instagram's just Daryl Ison.
A
So yeah, that's D A R E L I S O N. Go follow him there. You can follow me at David Green 24, see what's going on with my short term rentals. I've been posting some pictures of some of the work that we've been doing. Speaking of that, Coast To Coast Getaways, my short term rental management company is taking on new clients. So if you've got a short term rental that you're tired of managing or that you think could be doing better, go ahead and go to davidgreen24.com and use the chat option to get a hold of me. Or you could follow us on Instagram @CTC Getaways. You could contact us there. Also today's show was sponsored by both Hospitable and Price Labs. These are the the software tools that we use at Coast Coast Getaways to make sure that we increase direct bookings and make sure the houses are being priced correctly. A lot of people understand that you need to get bookings which is true, but after you're getting them you want to maximize how much you're getting them for. And sometimes people leave money on the table when they could have booked for more and they didn't or they don't lower their price in time to get last minute bookings. We kind of have a two tier strategy at Coast Coast Getaways where for future book we want to get longer stays and more money and then as we get closer to today's date where we're like oh, we're not as likely to get that booking, we want to lower the price and get something in there so that we're not losing money. You guys can learn more about that. We have a presentation we give all of our clients if you want to reach out and talk to us. And then lastly if you are a loan officer, the one brokerage is hiring. We are going to be having an office in Southern California very soon here. So we're going to have an office that I'll be recording from with Christian to do Mortgage Mondays at times and we're going to have in person training for those that want to get their license or hang it with us. Super cool opportunity. We're starting from scratch. Ground roots approach here to training, teaching, and getting better service in loan industry. So make sure you ask me about that. I'll get you in touch. Daryl, thanks again for joining us. I really appreciate you. We will see you. You know what? Maybe we'll do an episode of Real Talk. Realtor. You could talk about selling the Southern California properties that you're doing and give realtors some advice for how they can do it part time.
B
Be happy to.
A
All right, we'll see you next week on the David Green Show.
Host: David Greene
Guest: Daryl Ison
Date: May 7, 2026
This episode dives into the realities of being a real estate investor, with a particular focus on the challenges of owning and managing short- and mid-term rentals via platforms like Airbnb. Guest Daryl Ison shares a candid story of a disastrous Airbnb experience and discusses broader strategies for surviving market downturns as a real estate investor. The conversation is rich in practical details, war stories, and actionable insights, while also reflecting the frustrations many investors feel with Airbnb’s policies and guest support. The final portion shifts to Daryl’s overall investing journey with valuable lessons for long-term resilience in real estate.
[00:52–13:14]
Daryl Ison’s Airbnb Debacle:
Key Incident:
Dealing with Airbnb AirCover & Reviews:
"Their policy is no retaliatory reviews. And what they told me is that, oh, that policy is...not towards you, but towards Airbnb. I'm like, what? That makes no sense to me." [08:45, Daryl]
"You're dealing with somebody in customer service...they do a really great job at being nice and everything." [08:52, Daryl]
Takeaways:
[13:14–19:27]
Frustrations with Airbnb are "universal" among real estate investors:
“I just haven't met a human being yet that isn't absolutely at their wit's end with Airbnb. They went from the coolest thing that changed an industry...to just, just universally the most hated company within real estate investors I've ever seen.” [13:14, David Greene]
Shift toward direct bookings and tools such as Furnish Finder and StayFi.
Daryl’s take: “I've always been someone that if someone tried to get me to go off platform for a booking, I would just say, no... But now I'm kind of like, now I've been the one in some cases, like, doing that.” [15:19, Daryl]
Both host and guest benefits: more money to host, lower price for guests, less reliance on problematic platforms.
[19:27–24:46]
“I've lived in houses my whole life...I've never broke a ceiling fan in any of my houses... Like, the things that go wrong in these Airbnbs. ...I don't know how they're breaking it other than their kids are just acting like feral animals...” [23:16, David Greene]
[24:46–28:34]
[28:34–36:43]
Daryl’s journey:
Most recent speculative loss: Cape Coral, FL new build (2020). Construction delays and rapid interest rate hikes crushed projected cash flow; ultimately sold at a $5,000 loss after property values and rents tanked.
[36:43–41:26]
[41:26–44:03]
David discusses two investment mindsets:
“When you have a bad market like this, if you’re still offensively doing well, like you just said, you can ride out this downside.” [41:26, David]
Fears that in the next crash, hedge funds will scoop up most foreclosures, locking individuals out of value opportunities.
[44:03–49:03]
[49:03–52:01]
[52:01–53:53]
Light banter on learning foreign languages, Russian stereotypes, and pop-culture tropes.
“Not much, my friend. Not much. It's a scary language. Cyrillic, the Alphabet scares me. And I tell my wife all the time I have terrifying nightmares of seeing her Alphabet when trying to learn.” [52:06, Daryl]
Jokes about Russians being the movie “bad guys,” how they cook steak, and the cultural quirks of blended families.
“They just, it was just bad. They were letting the dogs use the restroom in the office.”
— Daryl [05:16]
“You're dealing with somebody in customer service...they do a really great job at being nice and everything.”
— Daryl [08:52]
“That's still a five star review. She took care of the problem.”
— David [21:21]
"I think investors are wasting money dumping it into these houses...never going to get that money back. And if they want to sell the house, no one wants to buy a circus.”
— David [24:46]
“The people that have hung on there, they don’t look at their investing as a business... I look at it as a business. There was no emotional attachment to it.”
— Daryl [40:18]
"We are going to go into a nap. And the jobs report that recently came out was abysmal...and no one buys houses when they don't have jobs.”
— David [39:17]
For listeners: This episode pulls the curtain back on the real-world struggles and triumphs of property investors, especially as markets and technology shift. The candid, sometimes humorous exchanges remind investors that setbacks are part of the game—and that good processes, direct bookings, and business-minded decision-making can make all the difference for long-term success.